Twilight ~ Stephenie Meyer (The Twilight Saga #1)

★★★★☆

Everyone else over here be in team Edward or team Jacob. I'm team Mike Newton all the way. What a pal. Good family, too.

Honestly, I was really surprised by how much I enjoyed this! I love the movies (you can't have a bad time watching those movies; they're unintentional comedy gold) but I'd tried reading Twilight once when I was 16 and couldn't finish it. Perhaps it just wasn't the right time for me to read it.

The Writing and Worldbuilding

It's a quick read, with simple, easy language and pace. It's definitely good for reluctant readers (which I am definitely not lol). Everything was actually fairly normal, not even particularly unintentionally funny, until the romance started, which was too quick and too cheesy, but still fun and engaging.

I found the atmosphere lacking, however, whenever Bella wasn't in nature. I've been to Forks and La Push many times (I live in Washington), and I could really see the landscape the way it actually is, but man-made places like the school and houses lacked any concrete description.

I actually really liked the vampires in this. I've been a sucker (lol get it?) for vampires since I was 5 years old and my older sister (who was actually obsessed with Twilight at the time) showed me the music video for Fall Out Boy's song A Little Less Sixteen Candles (A Little More Touch Me) to which I became unhealthily obsessed. I even wrote a vampire book when I was 12 (it is appropriately terrible and a shameless rip-off of The Vampire Diaries). I'm trash for vampires, what can I say? Nothing can stop my love.

The Characters

Bellhop: This girl gets way too much crap for being "boring" and "unreasonable" but honestly she felt pretty realistic to me. She's an immature teenage girl. I actually found myself relating to her a lot and I quite liked her, which is rare for me (most female MCs kind of piss me off)

Eduardo: His love language is gaslighting and sanctimonious scowling, but I loved him anyway. You can tell that a lot of the generally liked male love interests are completely based off him (Jace WhateverHisLastNameIsAtTheMoment much?) and well, it works, doesn't it? He's sufficiently broody

The Vamp Fam: These guys (excluding Rosalie and Emmett for the most part) definitely had better introductions and developments than in the movie. They're nice and good filler characters, definitely.

The School Squad: Mike Newton for the win. The All American Boy 10/10

Honestly though, I liked the school friends. I like them more in the movie, and didn't really care for the "mean girl" Lauren, but like the Cullens, they fulfilled good filler roles.

Jimbo: He was way creepier than I thought he'd be tbh. I kinda wish he'd been featured more and stayed longer.

Papa C: This man deserves more. He's a pure soul and we need to protect him goshdarnit!

Conclusion

It's unoffensive fun, honestly. Enjoyable, quick, lacking much depth. I had fun. I might read again. This book gets a lot of undeserved hate in my opinion.

Me to people who hate this: